


Something in the Manor

by Snivvles4902



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 16:59:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snivvles4902/pseuds/Snivvles4902
Summary: There have stranger-than-usual occurrences in the Walter Manor, starting with nightmares and quickly escalating from there. What could be at the center of all this?This is my first time posting something here, so be prepared for a few hiccups along the way.





	Something in the Manor

It was a quiet night in the manor, which could only mean one thing. Something was wrong.

The Spine’s eyes fluttered open. (Well, “photoreceptors” would’ve been the technical term, but “eyes” was easier to say) There was always some sort of sound in the manor, even at night, whether it be GG running up and down the halls because she was bored, or quieter sounds like one of the human family member grabbing a late night snack- usually Steve. But tonight, it was quiet- no, not even that, _silent_.

The first thing The Spine did was check on his audio receptors, thinking that maybe they had failed to come online. Nope. Fully functional. This was proven just a moment later when the hissing of steam made him jump.

_“Congratulations, Spine,”_ He thought to himself. _“You’ve been scared by your own exhaust…”_

He was currently in living room three, sitting in a chair with a book in his hands. He must have slipped into stasis at some point. That would happen to the robots sometimes, during long periods of little activity which reading, unfortunately, counted as.

The Spine sighed and stood up, making note of what page he was on before setting the book down on the chair.

He peered out the doorway and into the hall. Nothing, as expected. With how still everything was, one could mistakenly believe they were looking at a static image. With a brief moment’s hesitation, The Spine stepped out into the hallway. For a while he aimlessly browsed the corridors, hoping to hear a sound or see a flicker of movement from anyone but himself. Just a small hiss of steam from one of his siblings, or a little robot giraffe rounding the corner. Please, just let there be some sign that he wasn’t alone…

He didn’t quite get what he was hoping for.

In the middle of one of the hallways, the floor suddenly gave way to an ominous stairway down. That was definitely not supposed to be there. It was difficult to tell just how far down the stairs went, as all light soon vanished just a few steps in. Because of this, The Spine had to turn up the brightness of his optics, making them look like bright green flashlights, just to see an inch in front of his nose. Oddly enough, he had barely hesitated in descending into the darkness, like some strange force had compelled to.

The Spine had no idea how long he spent down there. Maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. Maybe a whole day.

At some point down, The Spine felt the ground level out. He was in a large room of sorts, but couldn’t make out the details no matter how bright he turned his optics up. He suddenly felt a more concrete presence, like somebody was standing right in front of him, but he couldn’t see anyone. Two lights of their own then blinked on, these ones orange in color.

“Hello?” After all the deafening silence, The Spine’s voice seemed strange and out-of-place even to himself.

There was no answer, just the feeling of the stranger advancing and the lights growing brighter, and a feeling of dread arose with them. The Spine backed away slowly at first, but he was full-on running before long, and he dimly wondered where the staircase went. No matter how fast he ran, it was useless. He could feel an unseen force gripping at his core, strangling it, tearing him apart. His screams were the entire world for a moment, before the silence claimed that, too, and what little light there was died out.

Suddenly, The Spine was back in living room three. Upon waking, he was met with four four glowing, worried eyes; three blue, one green.

“Are you okay, Th’Spine?” He heard Zero’s voice ask.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine.” The Spine replied slowly. He was still contemplating what had just happened. Was it somehow a dream?

“You s-s-sure? Cuz you were making a huge fuss, screaming and everything.” What Rabbit said was half-true. The Spine had awoken screaming, but not actual screams. Just silent screams over the Wi-Fi that only the other robots could hear.

Before The Spine could say anything, Zero cut in. “Was Spine having a nightmare?” He cooed.

“N-no, I-” The Spine could only stammer a few words before Rabbit interrupted.

“Were there c-c-clowns?” She asked.  
“SCARY clowns?” Zero added.

“No, not clowns…” The Spine said. He knew where this was going and, try as he might, he also knew it no use trying to stop it.

“Then was it the trench coat guy tellin’ ya to play a song about love?” Rabbit queried.

“Or the scorching eternal summer?” Zero inquired.

They went on the list every possible “nightmare” under the sun using every synonym for ask you could find in a thesaurus. After putting up with it for a record time of five minutes, The Spine finally lost his patience.

“Enough! You know as well as I do that we don’t dream!” He yelled, sounding a lot more harsh than he expected.

Robots did not dream, at least not in the way that humans think of it. Sometimes they replayed memories in stasis, but that was all they were- memories. Memories that always played out exactly as they remembered them, without ever an alteration. That only made what happened all the more perplexing.

Rabbit and Zero looked at each other for a second, then back at The Spine with worried, somewhat hurt looks.

“Sorry, I’m just a little… Spooked.” The Spine muttered, genuinely ashamed of yelling at his siblings.

“Wanna talk about it?” Rabbit offered in an unusually serious tone for the automaton.

The Spine paused for a moment and eventually decided that it would be best to just tell them.

“I woke up and everyone was just… Gone. Vanished without a trace. And this _thing_ was there and it tried to get my core and...” The Spine grimaced as he remembered the agonizing pain and he held his hand protectively over where his core was. “...And it hurt.”

“Well… Sounds like it was just a bad d-d-d-dream, then,” Said Rabbit.

“But we can’t dream. It just… I… It doesn’t make sense.” The Spine murmured. He was the type of person who needed things to make sense, which may not have been the best trait to have in the manor. Although even by Walter manor standards this was strange.

After a moment of silence, Zero finally said “Don’t worry Th’Spine. We’ll figure it out.”

“Y-y-yeah.” Rabbit added. “We’ll tell Petes in the mornin’.”

The Spine couldn’t help but smile. His sibling would always be there for him.

The robot-bonding moment was broken up by screams from inside the manor. Real screams. Human screams.


End file.
